Workforce development may not be the first impact area of digital inclusion that comes to mind, but the availability of robust Internet access is integral to a community’s ability to thrive both socially and economically. With an increasingly connected global economy, residents of countries with a low rate of affordable Internet access face larger barriers to accessing education and employment opportunities. And although the digital divide affects every country, UNESCO reports that low-income countries “are home to the vast majority of the estimated 3.7 billion still unconnected.”
In its early days, the founders of the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) assisted a number of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Pacific Islands with building their first networking infrastructure and links to the global Internet. The initial focus of NSRC thirty years ago was on the needs of U.S. scientists traveling to or developing science collaborations with a variety of domain scientists in dozens of countries around the world. NSRC assisted with the internationalization of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) in the 1990s, a program of coordinated projects sponsored by NSF beginning in 1985 to promote research and education networking.
Locally based network engineers are a critical resource for building and operating Internet services in all countries. Since 1992, NSRC has partnered with indigenous engineers across the world to encourage wider adoption, learn best practices for designing and building networks, and cultivate community-led management of national and regional Internet infrastructure. Today NSRC is a distributed team of network engineers and trainers living in Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, with a core group of staff and student employees based at the University of Oregon. Part of its mission is to “cultivate a community of technical professionals on a global scale to train indigenous network engineers who enable continuous progress for expanding the Internet into new areas, with a focus on affordable access.”
We sat down with Steve Huter, Director of the NSRC, to discuss the impact of digital inclusion on workforce development and his vision for a more connected world.
Q: Can you describe the approach of the NSRC?
A: One of our guiding principles is the importance of investing in people as well as infrastructure. We cultivate a philosophy of network operators helping each other. We infuse thinking about the next generation in NSRC’s engagements and continued growth of skilled network engineers in all countries—so people who’ve worked with us remember, “I got a hand up, I want to do the same for someone else.” Local hands cultivating local expertise leads to self-determination and the creation of much-needed employment and new opportunities for innovation anywhere in the world. This is particularly important for cultivating viable business models in rural areas across the many different cultures.
By employing a hands-on, participatory approach, NSRC facilitates technical training to teach practical skills to thousands of network engineers working in hundreds of Internet Service Providers, universities, NGOs, and scientific research facilities in dozens of countries. We have been steadily building grassroots infrastructure over thirty years to help develop networks in underserved and poorly connected communities in all world regions. Encouraging national cooperation and enhancing regional collaboration in the research and education community can reduce costs and result in better, faster networks.
The reason the Internet exists is to connect people. The heart of it is not wires and routers and servers—it’s people communicating with each other. Skilled people working together around the world is how we create, build, operate, and grow the Internet, so we need as much investment in people as infrastructure.
Q: What is the impact of connectivity on emerging countries?
A: Millions of people around the world have benefited from the creation and global growth of the Internet over the past few decades. The Internet provides tools and systems to address some of our biggest global challenges, including the delivery of affordable education and healthcare, sourcing clean water, increasing energy efficiency, and helping governments become more effective and responsive to the needs of their citizens. But we’ve only scratched the surface on the potential of the Internet and its many applications.
The phenomenal spread of mobile networks and phone-based applications has facilitated financial, agricultural, health, and other information services in many countries. Network services via mobile devices will accelerate as mobile operators upgrade infrastructure, and as cheaper and more sophisticated handsets lower the bar for innovation. In the business world, connectivity is largely about increasing productivity to improve the flow of goods, information, trade, and finance. Landlocked countries that are dependent on one or two major trade routes for access to international markets such as Bhutan, Malawi, Nepal, Paraguay, and small island nations can benefit from Internet connectivity, which allows them to reach new partners and collaborators more efficiently. As the world shifts to an increasingly digital economy, reliable and affordable access to Internet infrastructure becomes vital for education, business, agriculture, health care, and efficient government operations. Ultimately, lowering costs will increase mechanisms for access and innovation.
During the global COVID-19 pandemic, school systems and universities are stressed with providing access to course management systems and finding new ways for teachers to facilitate teaching and learning activities with students. Educational systems have been severely disrupted for young people everywhere and the pandemic has exacerbated limitations of learning if there is not good Internet access to the home. It’s important to support the national research and education networks that link universities and schools in the global R&E network fabric, while also expanding connectivity to rural areas and establish affordable access where many people live.
Various models of community networks are on the rise and some communications regulatory agencies are discussing how to treat them to encourage successful rural business models. Just like electricity or access to clean water, cost and availability will continue to be different worldwide, but I’m excited about a future in which accessing the global Internet is not a luxury, and will be available to those who choose to connect. My personal hope is that the opportunities for learning via the Internet continue to grow, become more of an equalizing force, and people can get affordable access to content and knowledge that will help them improve their lives and livelihoods.
Q: How does connectivity impact workforce development in your experience?
A: By way of example, take a look at Kenya, where NSRC worked extensively in the early 1990s with Dr. Shem Ochuodho, Victor Kyalo, Paul Olendo, and the African Regional Centre for Computing (ARCC) to help establish the first Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection to Kenya via Oregon. Over the years, Kenya has developed great national fiber infrastructure, entrepreneurial culture, engaged government leadership, innovative tech policy, and a robust national research and education network: KENET.
ARCC was so appealing to young techies because it was a place where students and university faculty members were galvanizing together to learn more about the Internet, its infrastructure, and how to build it, grow it, and scale it. The Internet pioneers there cultivated a strong culture that inspired many young techies who got their start at ARCC to believe that, “If we want our country to stand on its own feet and have our own well-developed community of network engineers, system administrators, programmers, etc., we need to build that from within and provide training opportunities.” The first several Internet Service Providers that were established in Kenya were started by people associated with ARCC in some way, and the culture of innovation and local workforce development blossomed into a productive and communally minded Internet development scene. Today, KENET provides fantastic training and learning opportunities about building and operating computer networks via their member universities and creates pipelines for students to pursue careers.
Participatory development works best when people on the ground, the techies, educators, and entrepreneurs, are coordinating with government agencies and investors to create social and economic opportunities. Good and affordable Internet connectivity is high on the policy agenda of most countries and global development and financial institutions nowadays, and the interplay between technology decisions and policy leadership is very important. Invest in local hands, local expertise, and local leadership to create sustainable networks and workforce development opportunities. The combination of improving infrastructure, which creates more supply, and people working together to deliver relevant platforms and services, which drives demand, is good for the whole Internet ecosystem.
Q: Can you name some success stories from your work at NSRC?
A: NSRC has helped train 50,000+ network engineers operating hundreds of networks in 130 countries around the world—that’s led to a lot of new nodes on the Net over the years and amazing friendships with a lot of fantastic people. This work helps develop leaders in science and technology. Many NSRC training alumni are among the Internet pioneers in their countries—longtime collaborators who have shifted to careers in policy arenas and administrative positions in their national governments. This includes important roles such as Minister of Science and Technology, Minister of Communications, Minister of Higher Education, and National Regulators who influence policy in their countries and can affect public service by expanding educational and economic opportunities via the Internet in their countries. The science-enabling activities of NSRC’s work have assisted with the formation of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in 50+ countries as well as 15 Regional RENs in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean, and the Middle East.
Creating experiential learning opportunities for student employees is fun and gratifying—dozens of university students have worked with us at NSRC. We help them develop practical skills that we know employers in the networking world seek. They come away with solid command line experience and we involve them in real projects to write and document good code, test and prepare hardware and software for live field deployments, learn about network security, contribute to research, interact with industry professionals, and help us develop sound teaching materials from the perspective of an informed student. They develop the skills and confidence to know that they are capable technologists with useful, job-ready skills.
When young folks figure out the powerful enabling element of Internet connections, it expands their world of work and their world of opportunity. I am always happy when we receive thank you notes from students about to graduate who have successfully obtained good jobs at ISPs or university networks or commercial industry leaders such as Apple, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Nike, or some cool new start-up. We keep in touch with our former student employees and some of them come back to help out as volunteer instructors with some of our international training gigs. It’s always a pleasure to see their progress.
Q: What are you most excited about for the future of connectivity?
A: By the end of 2020, we had achieved about 60% penetration of Internet access worldwide. There are still numerous universities, schools, and rural medical clinics that are seeking Internet access in all countries, and access from the home has now become more desired everywhere in light of the pandemic. Local, regional, and national government agencies are moving to digital services to save costs over time and more efficiently provide services. I look forward to seeing how governments (especially those in the poorer regions of the world) can contribute to providing some level of free access to mobile data for all of their citizens; even 2G or 3G speeds would be a good start in some of the least-connected countries, since that is where much of the national productivity will develop during and after the pandemic. In the long run, people that lack affordable access to fiber infrastructure will be held back by some form of low-speed Internet access that limits their potential as prices continue to rise, and next generation technologies continue to ramp up on fiber.
Over the next decade, I hope we can achieve 80% or more global, affordable access for people who’d like to connect to the Net. In terms of the global backbone of Internet infrastructure, submarine cables are increasingly being laid by content companies and operated by them, rather than the telecom consortia that built cable systems from the 1990s to today. Many of those consortia cable systems will be retired over the coming decade and we’ll see more private end-to-end cable systems from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others, using proprietary designs. This indicates that we are heading towards a global network in which companies with large-scale cloud computing systems will provide more of us with Internet bandwidth, plus compute and storage capabilities. There are some cool and creative things happening in the intra-cloud realm, so we should see new models of innovation develop over the coming decade.
We also need more fiber in the ground to provide core network infrastructure to as many places as possible—not just in wealthy countries, but for everyone. As my colleague Dale Smith says: “There’s nothing better than being on glass.” Building fiber infrastructure remains a huge challenge for sparsely populated parts of the world, so that’s perhaps where some of the new space initiatives and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks will help, or Project Loon or Free Space Optics from Google.
Unfortunately too many of the current initiatives don’t focus enough on service for totally unconnected people who would benefit the most. I understand the need for return on investment and market-driven dynamics, but typical models will not scale for connecting the half of the world that currently lacks any form of affordable Internet access. There needs to be greater policy coordination and new business models to integrate—both technically and financially—open access to fiber, fixed wireless connectivity, license-free spectrum, and TV White Spaces to drive down costs for reaching smaller towns and rural homes, schools, farms and businesses in every country in the world. LEO satellite link systems may become part of the solution, but current go-to-market pricing is too high for many people.
I am also excited about the convergence of IP-capable sensor networks and IoT devices for environmental and ecological monitoring, combined with real-time hazards monitoring and alerting systems. The world is currently experiencing an explosive growth of data in scientific research, which creates tremendous challenges to effectively manage and utilize all the data. Multi-purpose networks that can actively monitor natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, forest fires, landslides, tsunamis, forest health, watersheds, and volcanoes, while also building an amazing treasure trove of data linked via regional networks will help us better understand climate impacts and help us do a better job of protecting our precious planet.
